Sharks Everywhere
When you find yourself in a pool of sharks, you just gotta keep swimming. That’s the nature of the beast in this industry. Scammers, exploiters, industries that have been built on bilking aspiring writers, actors, filmmakers etc out of thousands of dollars.
I was contacted by the NY International Film and Video Festival today (www.nyfilmvideo.com). I’d submitted an online form to them for the upcoming Los Angeles portion of their NY-LA festival. Dood called me today and told me he could get me into the festival in NY. Great. But it would cost me $400. Not great.
I politely declined.
There are too many good film festivals out there that are not “pay to play.” I hate to use the word scam loosely but when Frank decided to convince me that the price was because it’s an “event, and part of the industry” I felt like I needed a shower.
No, Frank. That’s not how the industry works. If you’d taken the time to Google me you;d know I wasn’t new at this. At least come up with a better argument.
In a normal festival world you pay a submission fee for consideration and if accepted the festival handles the “cost” of screening the film. The $400 fee reminds me of those select media outlets that charge public relations agencies to write and article about them. Fact is, dood hadn’t even seen my film. The first part of the process only involves submitting a form, logline and synopsis.
Moving right along. And You should too. In fact you might want to consider moving right along past film festivals completely. It’s a crapshoot, a gamble, so you might as well stack the odds in your favor. A web series can position your film in front of an audience that will BUY your DVD, the graphic novel and anything else associated with it. Follow my action thriller web series right here Resurrection of Serious Rogers
